


One Degree of Separation

by prairiecrow



Series: One Degree of Separation [1]
Category: A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)
Genre: Age Difference, Consolation, Dominance, Drunk Sex, Drunkenness, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Mercy - Freeform, Robot Sex, Rough Sex, Submission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-20
Updated: 2012-02-20
Packaged: 2017-10-31 11:30:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/343570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prairiecrow/pseuds/prairiecrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After David's disappearance, Professor Allen Hobby finds himself at a bit of a loss and takes consolation where he can find it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> (1) Hobby is a scientist, so some of what follows is dry and technical. Hopefully there's enough juicy stuff to make up for that. (2) I wrote this story after trying to explain slash to someone using the most unlikely pairing I could think of. Then it turned out that the pairing wasn't so unlikely after all.

David was gone.  
  
It had finally come to the point where he had to deal with that reality, with those three little words that threatened to tear his heart out and completely unman him every time they came to mind. For two weeks he had managed to deny them, but now he felt them every day, growing closer, stalking him like a cruel and implacable enemy.  
  
Three little words. So simple, yet when he looked at himself in the mirror each morning he could not bring himself to say them out loud. His mouth opened, but when he met the reflection of his eyes he could not speak them: to voice them would be to give them reality, and then the grief that he had so fiercely and pointlessly resisted would overwhelm him at last.  
  
Given the fact that he had lost David before (his son of flesh and blood), he had thought that this would be easier, that knowing the territory would make it less horrifying -- that what had not killed him had, as it were, made him stronger. That was a lie, although certainly one he could forgive himself for, since it had kept him going through the long busy days and dark lonely nights since the second David's disappearance.  
  
They had been searching for two weeks, issuing bulletins to law enforcement agencies and mecha bounty hunters across the Eastern seaboard, sounding the deeps of the wreckage beneath the waves, and finally looking for any trace of wreckage on the sea that would indicate David's final fate. And they had found nothing: not a glimpse, not an echo, not a scrap of debris anywhere.  
  
David was gone.  
  
He and his team had spent fourteen relentless days looking for answers. Now, on the morning of the fifteenth day, Allen Hobby faced himself in his bathroom mirror and knew that he could buy no more time. He would have to close the active file on the project. It would be considered a success in spite of its miscalculated ending, and certainly Cybertronics would continue to support his research into mapping the impulse pathways of a single neuron, but David 2 -- the mecha mirror image of his dead son, whose small body and the awakening mind he had created out of cold metal and electricity -- would never fill his father's arms again.  
  
He was gone.  
  
Facing himself in the mirror, Hobby saw his lips part, the horrible words almost whispered. Then he saw the glitter of tears starting in his eyes and turned quickly away, splashing water on his freshly shaven face and patting it dry with a towel, until he knew he was in command of himself once more.  
  
When he glanced up again he saw no fear and no doubt, only calm control: the face of a world-renowned and respected scientist whose fatherly benevolence was almost legendary. He wondered what his colleagues would say if they knew the hell he was going through behind the mask. Surely they suspected, but he doubted they could imagine the depth of his growing sorrow. Only someone who had lost a child could even begin to understand.  
  
His first son would have recognized that he was feeling sad: David had always been keenly attuned to his father's moods. His wife would have known too, but she had left him long ago when she grew tired of always taking second place to his life's work, and he hadn't spoken to her in years.  
  
The David he mourned would not have understood, but Hobby could have explained to him what tears meant, and when he saw David 2 smile again it would have redeemed every misery that had ever existed in the wide and weary world.  
  
Was it possible that he had loved his second David too much?  
  
Feeling every day of his fifty-seven years, Professor Hobby donned his clothes and left the empty comfort of his suite for the only slightly less empty occupations of his laboratory.  
  
The first thing he did when he got there was to sit down at his desk and write a formal letter to the directors of Cybertronics New Jersey, announcing the end of the active phase of the David 2 project and briefly outlining the steps he would take in the next several days to euthanize it as painlessly as possible. The rest of the day was occupied with meetings and reports and conference calls, all of them devoted to closing the book on his dear little dead dream forever, right through into the darkness of autumn's early evening.  
  
At last, as the richly sedate wooden clock on his library shelf melodically chimed the fifth hour, Hobby called in his secretary for the last time that day and told her: "Send in Joe."  
  
Joe -- colloquially known as Gigolo Joe, and more officially as Simulate City lover model LX9-277E-HT, serial number AD5782-44YX77T6 -- was a sex mecha who until two weeks ago had been registered as a street prostitute in Haddonfield, New Jersey. He had been framed for the murder of a client, which was not in itself particularly unusual; criminals often attempted to implicate mecha in their crimes to direct attention away from themselves, and quite frequently succeeded, since mecha had no legal recourse and could be detained or destroyed with impunity.  
  
What was unusual about Joe's case was that he had recognized the situation he was in and attempted to evade capture by the authorities -- first by excising his own operating license with a scalpel concealed (along with several other unorthodox items) in his left forearm, and then by fleeing into the woods surrounding the city. There he had been picked up by a Flesh Fair sweep, and as he waited in their holding pen for his turn to be destroyed he had felt a little hand take tight hold of his, and looked down in surprise.  
  
Hobby knew this because he had subjected both the tapes from the Flesh Fair and Joe's own neural cube scans to close scrutiny in those first few days after David's disappearance. His child mecha had latched onto Joe and clung to him desperately, terrified of the uproar and destruction all around them. Joe had not pushed him away -- as a companion mecha, he was programmed to always give comfort when asked -- but when the Flesh Fair's ringmaster pulled David out of the cage and Joe found himself being dragged toward the stage he'd made one last desperate (and futile) bid for freedom. His inability to break David's robotically strong grip on his hand had ended up saving him when the mob recognized David's essential humanity and rioted at the prospect of the little mecha's destruction, and one of the Flesh Fair employees had released them both from the instrument of torture meant to melt them in a shower of acid.  
  
They had set off together into the woods, prototype and lover robot and supertoy, and from that point until David's savage attack on his duplicate they had not been apart for more than a brief span of minutes at a time. In sharing David's final hours, Joe had unwittingly stored invaluable data for Hobby's later analysis: the scan of his neural cube had provided a second-by-second record of David's every word, expression, and movement. Through Joe's eyes, Hobby had watched David's quest to find the Blue Fairy guide him from one amazing emotional leap to another, wonder upon wonder, until the door of the amphibicopter slid closed and separated him from Joe -- and his creator -- forever.  
  
He had almost wept when he watched that footage for the first time, knowing that David would never return from the cold sea, but had kept the shameful tears closeted in his heart. Still, they almost overcame him several times during the first three days after David's disappearance as he'd poured over every available source of data, Joe's scans and Flesh Fair footage and the recordings of security cameras in the Doctor Know franchise and on the street outside its doors, until he almost felt like he had been there, walking every step beside his son yet powerless to help him. David had had to do the best he could with Joe's advice, which, filtered through the lover robot's limited programming, had been by turns cunning, comedic, and far too adult for David to understand.  
  
And, at one point in the hallway of a Doctor Know franchise, revolutionary.  
  
"Yes, Professor Hobby." Sheila nodded and went away. No more than ten minutes later there was a respectful knock at Hobby's door, and two Cybertronics security guards entered, with Joe between them. They all came to stand in front of his desk, awaiting instructions.  
  
"Thank you," he told the guards. "Would you wait outside, please?"  
  
When they were gone Hobby looked Joe up and down, while Joe kept his eyes lowered. He was clad in a simple dark jumpsuit of the type Cybertronics provided for its sanitation mecha, but his slim frame carried it with something like fashionable elegance. His hands were lightly clasped behind him while he looked at the back of one of the framed photographs on Hobby's desk. It had a notation on the backing,  _David and Allen, Pierson Harbor, Aug 2125_ , and was one of Hobby's favorites. Caroline had taken it on a bright and breezy day long ago, when all had been right with the world.  
  
"Joe," he finally said, and the mecha glanced up to meet his gaze with clear green eyes. "Do you know why I've called you here?"  
  
"No, Professor Hobby."  
  
Hobby sighed. He wasn't looking forward to what he was about to do.  
  
After the neural cube scan he had assigned a team to give Joe what was commonly called a "deep diagnostic", which basically meant taking the mecha apart, testing every system, then putting him back together again. Joe's former owners had taken remarkable care of him -- he'd passed the mechanical inspection with flying colors -- but his behavioral benchmarks had been slightly off, a condition which, the team assured him, was not unheard of in LX9-277Es and was not a source of concern.  
  
Hobby had already known this, because the AC-3 neural cube that sat behind Joe's smooth forehead had played a significant part in his preparatory research leading up to the David 2 project. The AC-3 had been patented seven years ago, and its revolutionarily sensitive feedback paths had made a new level of complex real-time personality emulation possible.  
  
The LX9s had been one of the first companion mecha models to incorporate the new technology. Joe had been part of the initial production run -- in fact, he'd been one of the first one hundred units released by the Agency for marketing trials -- and had probably been idiosycratic from the day he left the factory, since one consequence of the AC-3's sensitivity to stimuli was a tendency for secondary programming pathways to impress themselves on the initial conditioned responses, resulting in internal operational interactions and self-referencing feedback... in short, a rudimentary type of conciousness. Certain aspects of its operation had been copied and directly applied to the initial templates for David 2's neuronal sequencing.  
  
Hobby found it more than a little ironic that the robot that had guided and protected David in his final hours was also, in a sense, his distant ancestor. And now David's creator was about to repay both those debts with a one-way ticket to oblivion.  
  
It had been a long and thoroughly wretched day. While Joe watched, Hobby rose from his chair and went to one of the cabinets, from which he retrieved a clean glass and a bottle of Pertsovka vodka, which, once poured, burned down his throat with a clean and painful fire. He refilled the glass and brought it, with the bottle, back to his desk, where he sat down and closed his eyes for a moment, savoring the numbness that he could already imagine spreading outward from his stomach to all the tired places of his body.  
  
When he opened his eyes again Joe was still watching him, waiting. For what? Orders? Hobby's team had done everything with him that there was to be done: he had been thoroughly examined and questioned and had his memory recorded for detailed analysis.  
  
This was the point where Hobby was supposed to call the guards back in to take Joe away and hand him over to the New Jersey police, who, having waited politely for the opportunity, would promptly eject his cube and erase it: even though he had been proven innocent of the Haddonfield murder, the theft of a police amphibicopter was crime enough to warrant his immediate destruction.  
  
The look in Joe's eyes -- alert, interested -- told him that the mecha knew it, too. What he was waiting for was his own destruction, just as he had waited in the cage at the Flesh Fair.  
  
Mecha, as a woman at the Flesh Fair had pointed out, did not plead for their lives. Yet Joe had cared enough about his own existence to evade the police in Haddonfield, an intriguing behavioral anomaly. When dragged toward the stage where he'd watched other mecha being destroyed, he had tried several times to get away. Where did his threshold lie between resistance and acquiesence? The examinations he'd undergone in the past two weeks hadn't included that determination, and for a moment Hobby toyed with the thought of exactly how such a test could be structured and administered: a virtual reality simulation would probably be best, although in Joe's case it no longer mattered. He was the last element of the David 2 project's active phase, and Hobby was about to close him down along with the rest of it.  
  
Perhaps because his departure would mark that finality, Hobby found himself reluctant to send the mecha away. He studied Joe for several minutes in silence, while Joe stood unmoving and unselfconcious for his scrutiny. Certainly a lover robot should be used to being looked at, and Joe was a fine example of the type, with excellent body sculpture and strong features more androgynous than strictly handsome.  
  
A basic modern LX9-277E-HT unit retailed at $7,000, but Joe, equipped with chameleon derma and calibrated for both heterosexual and homosexual interaction, would have cost at least $15,000 when he was made new. Everything, including beauty, had its price.  
  
Even love. David 2 had cost $900,000,000, or so close as to make no real difference.  
  
He let his gaze drift across the wall of photographs that now, more than ever, seemed to separate him from the world -- slices of time, captured in suspension and consisting of a single exquisite element that he would never possess again. His love for his son, trapped in the frozen patterns of light and shadow, their edges cutting him with every breath he took.  
  
When he looked past them and up at Joe he found the lover robot observing him intently, as unmoving as any photograph. Cool green eyes, the mind behind them briskly clocking every second and half-second, analyzed his expression and calculated response patterns for the actions he was most likely to perform based on his behavioral cues. And more than that: self-referencing feedback between his basic programming and the patterns impressed upon his sensitive brain by experience were informing him that he was performing those evaluations.  
  
Not many mecha were capable of that. His destruction, as necessary as it was, would be a waste.  
  
Joe's face was the last thing David had seen. As the second glass of vodka went the way of the first and his gaze continued to drift across the past (with occasional fleeting glances up toward the solid and attentive present), Hobby found that thought increasingly compelling. Manufactured sexuality and manufactured emotion had intersected and formed a connection that even now, after considering the available data for hours and days, he did not fully understand. And he wanted to understand, not least because he was a scientist, but mostly because understanding would mean another part of David for him to hold.  
  
Clearly David had defaulted to Joe as the closest thing to an adult orga he could find. Joe's motivation for helping David was far less explicable. Under repeated questioning -- "Why did you get into the amphibicopter rather than taking advantage of the confusion to run away? And having done so, why did you bring David to New York?" -- Joe's response had been consistant: "Because David needed me." Always the same words and the same certainty. And as tempting as it might be to understand that answer in terms of a companion mecha's programmed imperative to please and to serve, Hobby's instincts wouldn't let that conclusion ring true.  
  
When the second glass was empty he carefully poured himself another. That was a lot of alcohol to put away in one evening, but it was almost quarter to six and by now the offices around him would be empty -- why shouldn't he allow himself the luxury of relaxation? In a few minutes he would call the guards back to take Joe away, and it would finally be over, so he could return to his suite of silent rooms where sleep would elude him for hours and perhaps the tears he did not want to shed would find their way through his weariness at last.   
  
"Professor Hobby?"  
  
Joe's voice startled him, making his hand twitch and tap the neck of the bottle to the rim of the glass, almost overflowing it. He managed to set the bottle down without spilling any, then looked up at Joe, whose fine brows were drawn in a little frown, his sleek head tilted questioningly. It puzzled Hobby. What had the mecha seen? He would not have spoken except in response to a cue from the orga in front of him.  
  
Then again, this was a robot that had puzzled his observers by pacing his cell, rather sitting still for hours on end as would be expected of a mecha in confinement. He paced, he keyed his own internal music system on and off, he whistled spritely little tunes, and often he would dance -- actually quite well, considering the limited space he had to work with. He repeated the entire two-hour dialogue of a recent romantic comedy, with accurate pacing and accent and pitch, then went on to count the perforations in the ceiling tiles, twice. The self-referencing feedback operations had been providing themselves with stimulation when the environment itself failed to do so.  
  
Perhaps Joe had simply grown tired of watching him drink. He decided that this was indeed the case, although his normally sharp patterns of thought were by now growing quite blurry.  
  
"Do you think about him?" he asked.  
  
Joe did not seem surprised by the question. "About David?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Of course I do."  
  
"Explain."  
  
For several seconds Joe said nothing, his gaze sliding a little to one side, into the middle distance past Hobby's left shoulder. At last he said, "You haven't asked me that question before."  
  
Hobby took a sip of vodka, noting that it no longer burned his throat. He set down the glass and stood up.  
  
"Come with me," he ordered.  
  
The first few steps were treacherous, but by the time he reached the door to the library he was confident that he wasn't going to stumble and fall flat on his face. He sensed Joe close behind him -- prepared, he decided in another flash of odd insight, to catch him if he started to go down, with exactly the solicitude one would expect of an expensive mecha companion.  
  
The guards were still waiting in the hallway. When he stepped out into the hall they straightened, already moving forward to flank Joe, but he waved them off, speaking a little too carefully. "Thank you, gentlemen, I'm sorry to have kept you waiting. That will be all."  
  
The taller one (his name was Tobler, and Hobby could recall him joining the staff four years ago) hesitated. "Professor, aren't we supposed to take this mecha and process it for transfer to the mainland?"  
  
"I said that would be all." Hobby heard the irritation in his voice and was surprised by it. He turned away from the guards and headed for the elevator lobby, wondering what he thought was doing. He heard Joe fall in two steps behind him, matching his pace with such mechanical accuracy that with closed eyes he would have sworn that he was walking alone, and he actually glanced back over his shoulder to assure himself that the mecha was still there.  
  
As the doors to the elevator opened at their approach, Joe asked: "Where are we going?"


	2. Chapter 2

As the doors to the elevator opened at their approach, Joe asked: "Where are we going?"  
  
"A place where we can talk."  
  
The elevator recognized Hobby, and without being asked took them down several levels to the floor where his private suite was located. The lock on Hobby's apartment at the end of the hall clicked quietly as they stepped out of the car, readying the door to open as soon as he touched the latch.  
  
"Lights five," he ordered, triggering the lamp to the left of the couch as well as the soft lights above the stand-alone bar that it faced. He headed straight for the bar with the intention of continuing to anesthetize himself, gesturing Joe toward the couch. "Sit down."  
  
The apartment was on the building's southeast corner. It was very large and had an abundance of tall windows, plus glass doors leading onto a balcony on the south wall, but all windows in the main living area were currently shuttered and had the curtains drawn -- Hobby had been in no mood for the brightness of the rising sun that morning, or for several mornings previous.  
  
In a cabinet under the bar was a lonely bottle of whiskey. Hobby pulled it out and brushed off most of the dust, then poured himself a glass and promptly drank a quarter of it.  
  
Joe, walking toward the couch as instructed, slowed and craned his neck to take in the dark expanse of tastefully rich decor. A flicker of pleasure registered on his face as he scanned the intricately woven tapestry rugs and antique colonial furniture. When he reached the couch and arranged himself in the corner nearest the lamp he ran elegant appreciative fingertips along the wooden armrest, which centuries of use had worn as smooth as silk.  
  
Drink in hand, Hobby came round the front of the bar and leaned back against it to study the mecha who sat neatly cross-legged on his couch and watched him while he studied it -- a mirror reflecting at another mirror, around and around. Masks. He could picture the metal concealed by Joe's flawless skin as clearly as he could imagine the raw bone that lay behind his own weary face.  
  
"Tell me," he said.  
  
Joe turned his head a little to one side. "About...?"  
  
"You know what about." Hobby closed his eyes, feeling the room spin a little: he'd had far too much to drink. He hadn't drunk like this since the dark days immediately after his son had died. His first son. It was a blessed mercy. "David. Tell me about David."  
  
If Joe recognized the raw pain that crept into the orga's voice with the repetition of that beloved name, he didn't show it. "What do you want to know?"  
  
"All the things we didn't think to ask you."  
  
The tilt of Joe's head increased, that little frown knotting his elegant eyebrows once more while the yellow lamplight warmed the right side of his face and lingered in the green pools of his eyes. "Professor Hobby, I've told you everything I know."  
  
"No. No, you haven't. You took care of him, Joe. Why? You're not supposed to do that."  
  
Joe lowered his tinted eyelids a little, which only made his eyes look even brighter. "Without me, David wouldn't have known where to go or what to do."  
  
"So, you stayed with him because he needed you."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Ah-hah!" Hobby straightened and stabbed a finger at him. "No, Joe, he did not need you. He needed a nanny, or a policeman. You are a lover robot -- what, what possible interest could you have in what happened to a child?"  
  
"David wasn't a child," Joe said in the tone of one politely stating the obvious. "He was a mecha."  
  
"I see. And you took his side, because we all hate you. Because we'll stop at nothing to destroy you." Another swallow of alcohol, this time to push back the tears that such an unfair accusation provoked and to steady his voice. "I loved David! I would never... I..." Something in Joe's silence alerted him to an unspoken question. "Well?"  
  
"If you loved him, why did you send him away? Why did his mother abandon him in the woods?"  
  
"Monica was a mistake," Hobby replied at once. "She was less stable than we'd been led to believe."  
  
Joe said nothing, only regarded him without blinking, and Hobby closed his eyes. The first question was so much harder to answer than the second, now that he knew the consequences of his decisions.  
  
For an instant he wondered why he was answering a mecha's questions at all. Then he decided that these answers were all that he had to offer Joe in return for the unorthodox services he'd provided. After all, he'd been David's guide and guardian on the final night of his life; he had even tried to protect David by persuading him to abandon his quest, with a speech that a sex mecha shouldn't have been capable of giving.  
  
"At Doctor Know's, you said that he'd been built specific, like the rest of you." Hobby emptied his glass and recklessly poured himself another. "You were right -- David was designed to fulfill the need of couples desperate for a child of their own -- but he was so much more than that. David was a mecha of a completely different order, a mecha with a mind..." Another sip of whiskey that burned as keenly as his unshed tears. "A mecha with a heart."  
  
"With a heart?" This time it was polite disbelief.  
  
He glanced down into his drink, ruing the improbable nature of his dream. "We... I thought he was ready. That's how it is with children. No matter how much you love them, you have to let them go, you have to --"  
  
"Throw them out into the world," Joe said with a sudden edge of scorn, "all alone, and let them take their chances?"  
  
Hobby looked up at him, stunned. Mecha didn't interrupt their orga masters. But he knew that Joe was capable of independent thought, and the gleam he saw in the mecha's eyes was quite possibly insubordination.  
  
He shot gracefully to his feet and faced Hobby squarely across the coffee table, his intensity hitting the human's alcohol-heightened senses like a slap in the face. "I know what's going to happen to me," he said.  
  
Hobby straightened where he stood and stared back at him in disbelief. "Do you?"  
  
"I thought you'd have done it by now. But it doesn't matter anyway."  
  
"And why is that?"  
  
"Because David --" The tiny catch in his voice alerted Hobby, because mecha never hesitated, not that way. "David's gone, isn't he? You can't find him?"  
  
"We've been trying."  
  
Something very much like despair, an intriguingly human expression, darkened his handsome features. "But you haven't."  
  
As they stared at each other across the several feet that separated them, all the grief that Hobby had been holding seemed to coalesce into a heartbeat of silence before he finally gave the truth the words that would make it real: "No. And I don't think we ever will."  
  
Joe nodded very slightly. His gaze dropped and slid to one side, finding that same middle distance as it had in Hobby's office and dwelling there; he might have been looking into his own future, into oblivion. Hobby set his glass down on the bar. The sound it made and the trail of moisture left behind when he shifted it a little on the wood surface briefly occupied all his attention, until he spoke again. "You didn't answer my question."  
  
Joe's pale eyes returned to his face. "Your question."  
  
"Why did you help him, Joe?" It was such a simple one for orga, and one that he shouldn't have had to ask a mecha at all. Yet there Joe stood on his expensive carpet, being called to task.  
  
"Because he held my hand, and saved my brain." The team assigned to Joe had gotten that answer several times in the course of their questioning. It angered Hobby to hear it again, because it revealed nothing new.  
  
"So that once again your customers could ask for you by name?" he mocked.  
  
"Something like that."  
  
"No!" He slammed the glass on the bar to emphasize his displeasure. "That's not the right answer."  
  
"I'm sorry, Professor, but it's the only one I have."  
  
"Mecha don't feel gratitude. Mecha don't form relationships with each other. You said that 'only orga believe in what cannot be seen or measured' -- yet you claim to have placed a value on the consequences of David's actions and then set out to right the balance."  
  
"That's not at all what I said. I said --"  
  
"How much was it worth, Joe? You took him to Rouge City to find Doctor Know -- wasn't that enough? You brought him here instead of heading for Canada, or Mexico -- didn't you know you would be caught?" He could feel the hot pulse of frustration hammering in the hollow under his jaw and in the veins at his temples, and took another rough mouthful of whiskey. "You're intelligent, for a mecha. You must have realized that. Why did you wait for him?"  
  
"I --" Again that anomolous hesitation, Joe's gaze faltering. His behavior was inexplicable, and right now far too many things were beyond Hobby's power to explain or to undo. He slammed the glass down on the bar and abandoned it, going for Joe.  
  
Caught off-guard, Joe tried to back away, but Hobby lunged around the corner of the coffee table and seized his upper arms with a quickness and strength that surprised him.  
  
"Answer me!" He shook the mecha twice, hard enough to snap his head back and provoke a startled expession. "Tell me, damn you!  _Tell me!_ "  
  
At close range Joe's wide eyes were even more jewel-like: he could see the delicate striations in the irises, every facet a sheet of potentially changeable chemical irridescence that shimmered with latent electricity -- or perhaps not so latent, since he could imagine the tiny inaudible whir of the cameras inside Joe's sleek head as they parsed his face, trying to calculate his current emotional state. The thought almost made him laugh. How could Joe, as unusually advanced as he was, discern what he was feeling when he scarcely knew himself?  
  
He realized that he was breathing deeply and quickly, too much so, and willed himself to slow and steady his inhalations. His body obeyed, despite the renegade sensations now coursing through his groin.  
  
Joe was frozen in his grip, staring at him with that pale alarmed gaze.  
  
"I don't understand," he said in a much smaller voice. "Why are you so angry with me? I  _helped_  David!"  
  
Undefinable emotion clenched Hobby's heart. He pulled Joe closer, intending (he thought) to shake him again and make him yield the truth. Instead he crushed Joe's mouth with all of his anger.  
  
The sex mecha tensed briefly, then went pliant in his grasp. He closed his eyes and dipped his tongue slowly into the yielding sweetness of Joe's mouth (and it really was delicious, like tasting roses), washing away the tartness of the whiskey. When he started to withdraw Joe startled him by catching the tip of it in his teeth, nipping it, then lightly suckling it before letting it go, leaving Hobby breathless. Sheila, his current companion mecha, had never done anything that elaborate. But Sheila had been created for general companionship and possessed only a functional degree of sensuality simulation: Joe's designers had poured thousands of man-hours into making him the perfect sexual partner -- seductive, graceful, skilled, and beautiful.  
  
Oh, yes, Hobby realized as he released his hold on Joe's arms and the mecha pressed closer, his sure hands finding the orga's waist and slipping around it as if savoring every inch of the journey: very well programmed, and very quick off the mark.  
  
He opened his eyes to look into Joe's face and touch those synthetic lips -- they parted under his fingers, Joe's remarkable eyes growing hooded and sultry -- those lips that had been so close to David's face, part of a body that was perhaps the best link to his son that he had left. He tasted them again, lightly, then with greater force. He caught the mecha's left hand from the small of his back and interlaced their fingers, desperately trying to feel where David's skin had touched Joe's and missing his son with an ache so deep and heartbreaking that it brought tears to his eyes once more, burning on the edge of being shed.  
  
"Oh," Joe breathed between kisses, a small and perfect sound. He removed his other hand from Hobby's back and brought it to the orga's face as if to brush away the glitters of moisture. "Professor Hobby..."  
  
"Allen." He bowed his head a little to accept the comfort Joe was programmed to offer, the fingers that lingered against his cheek as the first tears finally slipped free. His voice was frail and breathless in his own ears. "Call me Allen."  
  
"Allen." Joe stroked his wet skin, searching his face, and seemed to find something there, because his cool jade eyes grew even brighter. "I'm sorry, about David."  
  
"I know you are." He kissed Joe again because it felt like falling, and freefall was better than the bleak place where he had come to live since David's disappearance.  
  
They swayed slightly together, Hobby's hand still gripping Joe's, still seeking contact with what was long since lost; and his tears fell, but only for a little while, perhaps the space of a few shallow breaths, because Joe's mouth was doing cunning, subtle things that successfully coaxed his attention in directions other than his own sorrow, while the mecha's hand slid back from his cheek (a light thumb tracing the line of his ear as it went by) to curve around the back of his neck, each fingertip trailing fire.  
  
He had never been with a male, orga or mecha, in his life, so the contours of Joe's back -- slim and muscular through the lightweight material of the jumpsuit -- were new to his experience in the context of passion. So was the touch of another erection yearning against his (the little noises Joe made as they pressed close indicating that 'yearning' was indeed the operative term), and the thrill of erotic heat each movement provoked confounded him at first; he heard himself making soft snorting sounds of surprise with every little nudge of Joe's hips, and was vaguely ashamed of his own candor... not that it would make any difference to a lover robot, who wasn't judging his performance as a human partner would.  
  
All that mattered to Joe was making him happy, and the mecha's sighs and murmurs indicated that he was perceiving the signs of his own success in that endeavor. Hobby found his vocalizations pleasing, even while recognizing their function in Joe's behavioral profile, because Joe had a lovely voice whose throaty quality was erotic in its own right.  
  
"Tell me," he whispered, pulling away from Joe's mouth and looking down at their joined bodies, intrigued by the sight of male against male, "tell me what you want me to do with you."  
  
"I want you to use me." No hesitation, only the slightest vibratto inflection, a simulation of perfect passion. Joe's eyes held his with smouldering intensity as those strong, elegant fingers caressed the back of his neck. "I want you to remember every desire you've ever had, every fantasy you've ever wanted to fulfill, and then I want you to tell me how to make them come true."  
  
That was the proper answer. "Very good, Joe."  
  
"Shall I undress for you?"  
  
He released his death-grip on Joe's left hand to touch the mecha's waist. The body sculpture was uncanny: its shapes felt disarmingly human, all the way up over the ribs to the clean shape of the shoulderblade rising from tight, toned muscle.  
  
"Yes," he decided.  
  
Joe kissed him again, light and lingering, then reluctantly slipped his hands from the orga's body and took a step back. Only then did Hobby realize how unsteady he had become, because he stumbled forward, only to have the mecha catch him -- one hand on his shoulder, the other against his chest.  
  
"Easy," Joe cautioned with a considerably less smoulder.  
  
"I'm all right."  
  
"You're sure?" He took his hands away, watching, but Hobby remained upright.  
  
"I'm fine."  
  
"Good." The sexual purr surged back into his voice, along with the saucy gleam in his eyes. "Because in a few minutes," he promised, toeing off his shoes and unsnapping the closure at his throat, "you're going to feel better than you ever imagined possible."  
  
So Hobby watched, bemused, while he opened the jumpsuit to the waist and shrugged his slim shoulders free, slipping it down his body and finally stepping out of it with the easy grace of someone who has disrobed for appreciative observers a thousand times -- and more. The actual number was 9,738, not counting Hobby himself (9,739, then), too many faces and names to picture, stories of loneliness and hunger forming tangental intersections across an existance that focused human desire like a lense yet really knew nothing of the appetites it served.  
  
But a shadow had dimmed his brilliant eyes when he heard that the search for David had failed... therefore the clarity of the lense was somehow flawed. That was all right, because Hobby was feeling a little bit flawed himself at the moment: unsure of his own clarity, of what he was seeing and why, or even of his own motivation. He only knew that he ached in every dimension, and that this mecha's touch somehow soothed him.  
  
Of course Joe was naked underneath the jumpsuit, and had produced a full erection. Hobby regarded it with almost clinical detachment. It was well designed and aesthetically pleasing, but the sight of it did not increase his arousal: the thought of being back in Joe's arms, on the other hand, made his heart pound noticably faster. What did that prove about the nature of his desire -- except, perhaps, that he was willing to accept closeness to David by proxy? That he was desperate enough to do anything, including jumping the tracks on an entire lifetime of sexual behavior, to ease the pain of his loss for even a moment?  
  
It didn't matter, because Joe was taking his left hand and moving past him, walking slowly backwards and drawing him gently toward the darkened door that led to his bedroom. There was no trace of a shadow in those shining eyes now as they effortlessly commanded his gaze. The irony of the situation did not escape Hobby. He had decreed that David was to return to him 'with a faerie hand in hand', and his son had done exactly that, for Joe was indeed inhumanly lovely, impossibly slim and graceful and flawless. When Joe smiled at him, he almost smiled in return.  
  
He followed the pull of the mecha's hand from his world into what seemed like another entirely: cool darkness where the light of a half-full moon spilled across his neatly made bed, and where Joe, lying back in that pool of otherworldly radiance, broke its glow into lithe patterns -- a smooth sculpted chest, the lean stomach of a dancer, the sweep of that elegant erection across his slim hip -- that Hobby found marvelously, irrationally pleasing. So he followed the tug of Joe's hand once more and let himself sink down on top of them, into the strength of Joe's slender arms winding around him like vines up the sides of an old building, and bent his mouth to the painted lips that were already open and rising to invite his kiss.  
  
Now that they were lying down, every part of the mecha's body -- his mouth, his skillful hands, his right leg twining around the back of Hobby's thigh to hold him close, the caressing thrusts of his hips and the slow surging arch of his flexible spine -- was involved in the task of utterly enthralling his orga partner's senses. The sweet friction of erection against erection was far more intense with Hobby's full weight behind it, and Joe was shameless in pulling him closer still: no woman had ever touched him with such bold certainty.  
  
The concentration of such singular purpose was so compelling that Hobby, even as he felt himself rapidly drowning in the intensity of their encounter, willingly let himself go, giving up the thing that most defined him to himself in every aspect of his life: his control of all the variables, his intellectual mastery. This had nothing to do with intellect. This was raw emotion -- lost, desperate, passionate feeling, an arena where Joe, by specific design, was the expert in potential and realization. It was an area that Hobby had never paid much attention to in the course of his carefully defined life.  
  
Closing his eyes (mouth pressed so sweetly against mouth), he felt Joe's hands adoring him through his clothing -- cardigan and shirt and undershirt and sensible khaki pants, his own fully-dressed state somehow making Joe's complete nakedness more thrilling -- with gliding patterns of exquisite tension and release, set to a rythym that he couldn't quite grasp mentally but whose patterns his body seemed to recognize and crave. When one of those hands slipped up the back of his sweater he heard himself groan out loud and was surprised by the sudden shudder that wracked his body, his back arching. Joe made a small pleased sound and ran a cool unhurried fingertip up and down his spine through the thin layers of cloth that remained, turning the shudder into a long shiver of helpless arousal.  
  
The hand withdrew, apparently content (for the moment) merely to suggest closer contact; but Hobby found he had far less patience. He pushed himself out of Joe's embrace and sat up, hastily tugging the cardigan over his head -- he didn't trust his fingers with the buttons -- and tossing it to one side. He knew that his hair, or what was left of it, was sticking out in all directions, but he didn't care, because now when he lay down again he could feel the heat of Joe's body through his shirt, so electric that it actually seemed to burn his skin.  
  
Joe smiled, a playful gleam of approval in his eyes. As the orga settled back into his arms he smoothed the flyaway strands of hair, then cupped the back of Hobby's neck and drew him down once more. The mecha's mouth was unlike anything he had ever experienced: tender yet firm, yielding to his groping kisses, then skillfully drawing him even deeper -- sucking at his lower lip, biting it a little, then coaxing him in with the flicker and friction of tongue against tongue until they were devouring each other with an intensity that left him hardly able to breathe. And when he had to come up for air those remarkable lips were never idle: they were applied to his throat lightly, or with delicious suction, or with an adventurous edge of teeth, or teasingly under the line of his jaw and chin, as if reminding him that they were still there and only awaiting his attention. There were no awkward pauses for Joe, no hesitations, only an extensive library of sexual techniques to be applied in patterns of inspired improvisation.  
  
And he was good at his work, making Hobby tremble with a delirious excitement that rose from some previously untapped source deep within his body and abounded joyously through every vein, every heartbeat, every breath; no embrace had ever felt so real. Perhaps it was because he was intoxicated. He had never had sex with Caroline, or anyone else, while he was drunk -- in most respects his life had been as staid and sensible as the stereotype of the scientist would lead one to believe.  
  
Joe broke the rules. He probably always had. Joe was breaking him apart with beauty and sensuality, and with the mystery that they shared -- the one that separated them by a single degree, the piece of their lives that was mutually missing. The loss that no one else in the world could understand so well, ameliorated for a brief span of minutes by the heat of body against body in the dark.  
  
It couldn't last. But for now it felt like forever, and Hobby was glad to lose himself in the illusion.  
  
When one of Joe's hands finally slipped between their bodies to take hold of him through his pants the sensation that erupted through his body was almost a convulsion. He cried out, an exclamation that Joe soothed with lingering caresses of his ripe mouth.  
  
"I want to taste you," he breathed, glancing down while stroking the object of his simulated desire, then raising his bright eyes to Hobby's face. Hobby looked down at him in what was very nearly confusion. "Will you let me, Allen? Please?"  
  
Perhaps it was intoxication -- or perhaps the moment was so mesmerizing simply because Joe was amazingly, perfectly, intensely hot, made for sex and so very eager to be used. And possibly, Hobby thought vaguely as his erection (seemingly of its own accord) thrust itself into the palm of Joe's hand, he had recognized this cathartic encounter as a possible outcome -- and it was what had possessed him of the notion to bring Joe here in the first place. The human mind worked in mysterious ways.  
  
So he nodded, looking down at Joe's beautiful face but seeing much deeper, layer upon layer of intricacies and inhumanities right down to the nuclear fire that fueled the very pulse of the machine. In that respect he had no illusions at all, and wanted none.  
  
Joe looked pleased and drew him down for another lingering kiss (a shared sigh, that delicious taste of roses) before rolling them both over and sitting up to straddle his partner's thighs. For a moment he simply gazed down at the hapless orga, the quality of his smile altering -- it struck Hobby that he was enjoying the power inversion of their relative positions -- while he ran slow savoring hands down the older man's chest and belly to the front of his sensible dress pants, which he opened with practiced ease.  
  
Hobby's erection reared up from its prison, still constrained by his boxers. For a moment Joe studied its outline appreciatively, running one finger up its side from the base to the exposed tip that peeked out above the waistband (Hobby couldn't remember the last time he'd been so long and so hard, alcohol or not) before drawing the front of the boxers all the way down to the orga's perenium. The elasticity of the waistband pushed his testicles up and presented them prominently for Joe's servicing, an achingly brazen detail that Hobby would never have dreamed of himself, but one that he welcomed shamelessly.  
  
It occurred to him that he was going to have a lot of regretting to do in the morning. Then Joe took hold of him again, and for a few slow heavenly strokes of that knowing hand Hobby found himself suspended once more, in freefall, closing his eyes and gripping Joe's smooth cool knees and aware of nothing else except the pleasure zones where their bodies intersected.  
  
When the mecha slid down between his legs -- smoothly oiled and supple as a cat -- and bent to his task, Hobby trembled once more. Sheila had performed fellatio on him many times, but this... this was a whole different order of magnitude. This was like having his soul drawn out of him by infinite languid degrees as Joe thoroughly stimulated every aching inch of him, from tip to testicles, to a pitch of fevered intensity that threatened to annihilate thought itself.  
  
He heard his own rising groans, rough unseemly sounds he would never have imagined himself uttering before but could not suppress now, as he reached down to take hold of Joe's sleek head. His hips started moving of their own accord, pushing his gathered testicles higher into Joe's caressing hand while that wondrous mouth purred against his hot wet flesh and welcomed him in again, and again, and again: licking, sucking, teasing him with gentle nips that made him emit soft little cries he scarcely recognized as his own. In the delicious rythym of alternating delicacy and intensity in Joe's caresses, time rapidly ceased to have meaning.  
  
Suddenly the mecha plunged downward, swallowing his entire length and working it with a suction that threatened to pull his hips right up off the bed and made him yell with helpless pleasure -- but when he started to thrust toward orgasm Joe abruptly drew back and slowed his ministrations. Incredulous, he pushed himself up onto his elbows and looked down at the lover robot, who met his gaze and slowly released the head of his penis from its delightful haven.  
  
"From the front or from behind?" he asked once his mouth had slipped free.  
  
In his state of drunkeness and sudden blinding arousal, it took Hobby a couple of seconds to parse that sentence, and even then it confused him. "I... what?"


	3. Chapter 3

Suddenly the mecha plunged downward, swallowing his entire length and working it with a suction that threatened to pull his hips right up off the bed and made him yell with helpless pleasure -- but when he started to thrust toward orgasm Joe abruptly drew back and slowed his ministrations. Incredulous, he pushed himself up onto his elbows and looked down at the lover robot, who met his gaze and slowly released the head of his penis from its delightful haven.  
  
"From the front or from behind?" he asked once his mouth had slipped free.  
  
In his state of drunkeness and sudden blinding arousal, it took Hobby a couple of seconds to parse that sentence, and even then it confused him. "I... what?"  
  
"Me."  
  
The word was charged with such sensual heat that Hobby's heart actually skipped a beat, so rich was the promise that this coupling would be the best of his life no matter which option he chose. It also implied that they had only scratched the surface of what Joe was capable of making him feel, or do -- and with that prospect came a shock of startling sobriety.  
  
What the hell was he doing anyway? Letting a lover robot take him so easily by the hand and lead him into the darkest place of his own life, there to lie him down, to touch him, to kiss him and taste him -- a mecha that he should have written off and sent to its destruction an hour ago? Yes, he was drunk, and Joe was inhumanly provocative, but this recklessness verged on insanity.  
  
For an instant, he was himself again. But only for an instant.  
  
Then Joe, who had been studying his erection with hot hooded eyes, looked up again, watching Hobby's face intently as that sweet mouth dipped to lightly caress him once more -- full lower lip catching ever-so-briefly on the underside of the head where it met the shaft and reclaiming him in a thrill of exquisite sensation. The mecha's unblinking gaze seemed to see right through the tangle of pain in Allen Hobby's mind to provoke a startling realization: that the scientist and the mechanism were the same. They had both known David, and that miracle would haunt them until their last mortal instant, the last breath, the final spark of electricity.  
  
His rational mind, or what was left of it between the alcohol and Joe's attentions, immediately dismissed the notion. Mecha were incapable of such abstractions. Yet had he not seen a shadow darken those shining eyes, and thought that he recognized it because it was not unlike the shadow in his own heart?  
  
Fundamentally, there might be no difference at all. Joe's secondary processing path, and the self-referencing feedback it generated, made him capable of simultaneously experiencing two states of awareness: that David had been important to him (for whatever reason), and that David was irretrievably lost. The discrepancy between those concepts had to be manifesting itself again and again with every tick of Joe's clockwork mind, and when Hobby tried to imagine what that state must be like from within he could come no closer than to remember his own grief, tightly circling its equally unyielding poles of desire and despair.  
  
He still didn't know why Joe had helped David -- and now, for the first time, it occurred to him that he never would, because Joe might simply be incapable of explaining why he had done those things that so clearly demonstrated a capacity for something supposedly far beyond his scope. Certainly he could not recognize the paradox presented by his own actions.  
  
At the moment, however, they were in an area strictly governed by his programming, and Joe was in perfect harmony with his world.  
  
Receiving no response to his question except a somewhat glassy-eyed stare, Joe defaulted to a variant of what he had been doing before. Glancing down at the yearning erection before him, he slipped his hand up to cradle it, then bowed his head to press a soft, molten kiss to the base. He ran his tonguetip firmly up the median (a progress broken by one or two white-hot little flickers) to engulf the swollen head again -- his mouth so wet, so welcoming, soft lips tightly embracing as his teeth gently grazed the tender skin.  
  
The wave of pleasure that surged through Hobby's body knocked loose a flurry of drunken emotions: a wild sort of wonder, pale disgust at his own lustful weakness, and an echo of his initial anger, all of it overwhelmed by an inarticulate grief and sorrow so deep that he moaned and drew a hitching breath, almost drowning, suddenly on the verge of tears once more.  
  
"David..." Had he actually said it? "David, oh, God..."  
  
Joe heard, and pulled back a little to caress him -- or rather, the six and a half inches of him that were currently the center of attention. "Shhh," he cooed, stroking the shaft and pressing it with soft kisses. His forefinger ran up to tease Hobby's slit and circle lightly in his pre-ejaculate, sending another keen tremor through the orga's body. "Shhh, Allen, don't cry -- I'll make it all go away, I promise."  
  
"You can't." He closed his eyes hard to drive back the tears, fumbling one hand down to take firm hold of the nape of Joe's slim neck: he didn't want to mecha to interpret that statement as a directive to cease and desist. There seemed to be no danger of that, however, as Joe bent to run his tongue around Hobby's testicles, drawing first one, then the other, briefly into his mouth, and taking the human's breath away. "Nobody can -- can -- oh, God, I..."  
  
Joe smiled against his burning nakedness. "I can make you forget," he whispered, as if imparting a precious secret. He ran his elegant fingers up Hobby's erection, then slowly down, with a delicate edge of fingernails that made the darkness around them explode in actinic sparks. Through the blaze of pleasure, Hobby could still hear his soft voice: "Forget everything else in the world, except me. Except us."  
  
It might well be true; in any case, Hobby had no more will to resist. When Joe drew back he let the mecha go, trusting the course of its programming. With practiced speed Joe took care of his clothing: pants, shoes and socks removed so deftly that he scarcely felt them leave, and the next thing he knew Joe was stroking his knees, running teasing fingers up the insides of his legs as he made his way back toward the object of his affections. When Hobby's thighs opened he bent to grace the moist, lightly-furred skin with nips and wet little licks of his tongue, tiny fleeting caresses that made the human groan with new excitement; his hips rose, yearning toward that amazing instrument of pleasure.  
  
"You still haven't answered my question, you know." Smouldering words between hot little kisses as he worked his way inward, such a perfect counterfeit of desire that even Hobby -- who knew exactly what Joe was, down to the function of every fibre and servo -- found himself almost believing that it was more than merely a sensuality simulation. "Which way do you want me? I'm really quite limber -- I can assume any position you can possibly imagine."  
  
A new flush rose to Hobby's cheeks. The LX9 had degrees of motion that no human contortionist could hope to match, and the limited range of possibilities that flickered through his mind -- the missionary position, or Joe face-down on the bed underneath him, or Joe naked against a wall, glancing over one shoulder at him with cool mysterious eyes -- only reflected the paucity of his own conservative imagination. Given half a chance, Joe would show him more things in one night than he could have invented in a lifetime, all of it perfectly executed and as intense as the human body could bear.  
  
For the moment, Joe had reached his goal. He nuzzled lightly into Hobby's groin, humming softly as if he enjoyed the scent, his warm artificial breath caressing the damp shaft. "Mmm, would you like me on my hands and knees? I think I'd enjoy that. You can get in a good hard stroke from behind..."  
  
The prospect made Hobby moan again with considerable urgency, but Joe wasn't finished with foreplay yet. Cupping Hobby's testicles, gently rolling them in his right hand, he leaned up a little to undo the lowest button of the older man's shirt -- with his teeth.  
  
Surprised, Hobby looked down, focusing with some difficulty as Joe proceeded to the next button, then the next, but he couldn't determine exactly how it was being done: he was drunk, the lighting was fugitive, and the mecha was too quick. Between buttons Joe paused briefly to grace each inch of revealed skin with tiny kisses, and Hobby sighed, letting his head sink back on the bed as Joe proceeded up his torso. It felt wonderful to surrender. The whole room seemed to be spinning a little, its axis the skilled hand whose squeezes and caresses were keeping his erection at a low boil of dazzling, breathtaking stimulation while Joe finished undressing him in a most unconventional way.  
  
When he reached the middle button Joe shifted to straddle the human's right thigh, and the tip of his artificial shaft brushed Hobby's skin. Joe murmured happily and nudged the head closer. Almost absently, Hobby reached down to investigate the mecha's erection with his hand. He was pleasantly surprised by its texture: smooth and very warm and of a slightly yielding hardness, velvet derma sheathing an ingenious mechanism designed to adjust its length, width, and temperature to suit the preferences of Joe's clients (it was currently at its default setting, 16.51 x 3.82 centimeters and 39 degrees centigrade, since Hobby had not specified a different preference).  
  
He tightened his fingers, and when Joe gasped softly, with the throaty edge of a laugh, and thrust deeper into his grip, he had no doubt that the robot's reaction was sincere. Positive and negative feedback were the basis of mecha behavioral conditioning, and in lover robots the sensitivity to being touched and stroked, to entering and being entered, was deliberately heightened. Although they had no programmed urge to seek further stimulation, they responded with exquisite delicacy to any cues they were given. In male sex mecha configured for bisexual service, the penis and the anal canal in particular contained dense sensory clusters that generated powerful sensations when stimulated -- he could clearly visualize the sequencers in Joe's cube reacting to the cascade of input, bright shivers of electric activity that could arguably be called "pleasure".  
  
He squeezed again, smiling when Joe moaned and lightly bit the soft rise of his stomach before turning his attention to the second-to-last button. He raised his other hand to caress Joe's hair, which was as smooth as glass and as soft as silk under his fingers; he fancied he felt it flow with electric life, smart-derma rippling on the verge of a cosmetic change that never came. (Within limits, Joe could be anything he wanted, but this was the Joe that David had seen, if certainly not the Joe that David had experienced.) He ran his hand down the slender neck to smooth gleaming shoulders whose synthetic muscleforms mimicked the subtly contoured build of a dancer, and Joe purred and arched into his touch like a cat.  
  
"Mmm, oh yes..." A duck of his head, the tiniest click of teeth meeting button, and the shirt was open. He used his teeth again to flick the tastefully expensive fabric away to either side, then pushed himself up on one arm to look down with evident pleasure on what was revealed.  
  
Hobby felt his first, and only, twinge of genuine inadequacy. He'd always considered his chest his least handsome aspect (a few little fey tufts of blond hair and some freckles were its main defining features), but Joe hummed deep in his throat, and the tip of his clever tongue peeked out and ran slowly along his full lower lip -- as if the sight of a nearly naked fifty-seven-year-old scientist spread out beneath him filled him with the most delicious anticipation.  
  
A sudden urge to sit up and bite that impertinent tonguetip came over Hobby, but he had done no more than register it when those amazing crystal eyes rose to meet his gaze again, and he found himself captivated once more. Traced with moonlight, Joe was exquisite and mysterious in a way that he had never seen before in either mecha or orga -- so perfect in form and function, a definition of beauty that would remain with him, he suspected, for the rest of his life.  
  
"Now," Joe whispered, seeing right through him and pushing slowly forward into his hand, "where were we?"  
  
He released the mecha's penis and reached up to touch that flawless face, whose loveliness suddenly filled him with peculiar regret. This night would be Joe's last. "You were asking me how I wanted you."  
  
"So I was." Joe smiled a little, turning his head just enough to kiss Hobby's thumb. His gaze grew intent. "Would you like to take me from behind, Allen? Or would you prefer to enjoy me just as you are? I can do all the work... while you lie back and enjoy the ride."  
  
His fingers, which (amazingly) had never been idle through the shift in their relative positions, stroked the orga's shaft a shade more firmly, pumping it a little, gently squeezing the head to make the human gasp as he moved to straddle both of Hobby's legs. He cradled Hobby's erection in his hand and lifted it, leaning forward to rub his own penis against it and sending another frisson of white-hot arousal up Hobby's spine to explode behind his eyes. His hands shifted to tightly grip the back of Joe's neck and the whiteness of that slender shoulder as he thrust upward into the intersection of their bodies, his breath hissing impatiently between clenched teeth.  
  
"You like that idea, do you?" Joe smiled at his own success, easily resisting the weight of the orga pulling him downwards, while his hand enclosed both their erections and stroked them slowly together.  
  
Hobby knew what lay behind that look: a behavioral model defined, probability calculations clicking into place on the same result -- the mecha superior position, and the whole event ending with a shudder and a yell in sixty to eighty seconds. The orga had been acquiescent since initiating this encounter, content to let pleasure be given to him without controlling its form or duration, and there was no reason for that pattern to change.  
  
Joe thought he had everything figured out.  
  
But even scientists are not always creatures of reason, particularly those in a state of drunken passion. And quite suddenly, something inside Allen Hobby awoke and rebelled. He seized Joe's wrist, yanked the mecha's hand away from his erection, and lunged upward, rolling Joe over hard onto his back.  
  
Joe did not resist. He let Hobby pin his wrist to the bed just above his sculpted right shoulder, watching the human's face closely as the man took hold of his penis simulacrum, gave it one savage stroke in retaliation, then delved down between his opened thighs. The ring of artificial muscle flexed at Hobby's touch, nipping at his fingertip as he probed roughly inside -- smooth, hot, gripping and already drawing him deeper. He had never felt anything so welcoming in his life, and impossibly, it made him swell and burn even hotter.  
  
He glanced up into Joe's face. Among the many possible behavioral responses open to him, Joe had chosen to close his shining eyes and shiver, arching his back with a little gasp of surprise (his nipples, Hobby suddenly noticed, were small and erect and perfect -- he wanted to bite them too, and lash them mercilessly with his tongue -- but Joe's body was demanding his cock, and he had never wanted to fuck anything so desperately in his life).  
  
"Oh, yes!" Joe cried, running his free hand down Hobby's back with a delicious edge of fingernails and tilting his hips to let another finger join the first and push deeper, "oh, please!" The desire in his voice was a clever copy of humanity, but his enjoyment was quite real, and Hobby moved to engage it, guiding himself in with shaking fingers.  
  
It was like wrapping himself in hot silk: not wet with lubrication like the channel of a female sex mecha but nonetheless deliciously slippery, and soft as velvet. He braced himself up on his right elbow, tightening his other hand's grip on Joe's wrist, and Joe turned his head to one side, moaning sweetly as Hobby slid in to the hilt and paused there, his thighs trembling with tension.  
  
"Oh, Allen!" Joe wrapped long legs around his waist with amazing flexibility, tilting his pelvis to maximize penetration. His free hand clutched Hobby's right shoulder, his internal mechanisms rippling as he turned his head back to gaze wide-eyed into the human's face. "It's been so long since I've been used..."  
  
"Two weeks." Hobby was surprised to hear the unsteadiness in his own voice. Looking past Joe's eyes, he could almost see the sequencers in his cube erupting as the erection inside him and the pressure of their bodies against each other provoked wave after wave of richly nuanced sensations. A significant proportion of Joe's existence had been spent in various states of similar excitation under his clients' caresses: before his capture, he had never been off the job for more than the few hours a year required for his licensing inspections. For a sex mecha with self-referencing feedback operations, two weeks without physical contact was an eternity of deprivation.  
  
He withdrew a little, quite slowly, resisting the almost overwhelming urge to start thrusting long enough to enjoy the way Joe's jewelled eyes grew brighter, his ripe mouth yearning upward for more kisses. It occurred to Hobby that he was only going where dozens -- or hundreds -- of faceless grunting fat old men had gone before him, but it didn't matter, because the room was reeling around him and Joe's slim body was the only thing in the world that felt solid.  
  
He closed his eyes and bent blindly to Joe's mouth again, bruising it with kisses, muffling the mecha's soft cries as he started to slide in and out: carefully at first, then with greater confidence as the unfamiliar quickly became the utterly wonderful. In this warm and perfect beauty there was no doubt and no hesitation, only sweet intoxicating surrender that obliterated thought; even the strange presence of an erection caught between their bodies with every thrust had its own erotic allure.  
  
He knew was using Joe's body as a distraction, just as he had used the alcohol. There was no mystery there... until, in mid-stroke, he opened his eyes and realized that Joe was still watching his face intently -- and was startled anew by the vital presence in that gaze, a provocative fire that reminded him that he was dealing with a genuinely unknown quantity. The cameras hidden behind those exquisite eyes were driven by an unknown process that still eluded him, one which he was no nearer to for having so intimately penetrated the robot's body.  
  
With that thought, the anger that had precipitated this coupling resurged to color his lust. His thrusts into Joe's slick velvet heat became hard, passionate, and desperate: as close as he could get, yet still yearning to be closer. A shiver of raw emotion coursed breathlessly through him, wild hunger and frustration that he could go no further, and he groaned, pounding harder and clutching Joe's wrist hard enough to leave bruises if there had been flesh and blood to injure.  
  
His savagery only made Joe's gasps sharper and more eager with every stroke: he was being used, and it mattered little to him whether that was done with rage or with tenderness. He slid his arm across Hobby's back to clutch at his left shoulder and tipped back his head, lips parted rapturously, allowing Hobby to attack the slender throat thus exposed -- sinking his teeth into the soft derma just under Joe's jaw, sucking at it and savoring the delicious blend of roses and delicate musk under his tongue.  
  
He bit again, harder, and was pleased by the cry of mingled pleasure and pain that resulted as the mecha bucked under his weight, wrist twisting in his imprisoning grip -- Joe, who could have easily thrown him across the room, pretending to be trapped, simulating helplessness, submissive to his will... he had never been like this in sex, yet with Joe this violence was all he could think of and everything he wanted. And for Joe it was much more than that: he was fulfilling his primary function, and Hobby's unbridled enjoyment validated his very existence.  
  
Gasping for air, heart pounding, he didn't think he was going to last long; but the alcohol must have been inhibiting his orgasmic response, because it felt as if he dwelt there for hours in a haze of sexual delight, savoring Joe's soft whimpers and gasps with every thrust. This time when his pace quickened Joe's body enhanced the process, rippling and flexing around him in a way that no human partner could ever imitate.  
  
Just before orgasm he suddenly thought of David again, and through the closeness of the artificial body in his arms he felt as if he could somehow touch his son, one final time. He cried out, a lost and seeking sound.  
  
Then his climax overwhelmed him, and for one shining moment there was nothing else in the universe -- no grief, no pain, no doubt, no numbers and no analysis, not even David -- nothing else at all, except Joe. And his aching heart was at peace.  
  
Joe arched under the human's weight, breathing his name -- "Allen, oh Allen, Allen!" -- with every pulse that filled him. When the mortal body's long shocks of straining tension finally exhausted themselves he held it close, slipping his wrist free from Hobby's relaxed grip to stroke the man's sweat-drenched neck as he collapsed, pulling in deep ragged breaths and shaking with the force of his release.  
  
He brushed Hobby's cheek with his lips, tasting the moisture there like a gift (like the man's semen, still warm within him), and when Hobby turned blindly toward him -- wanting, but not knowing quite what -- he gave the human what he needed: feather-light fingers caressing his face, and little after-kisses that sent shivers through him and made him moan softly in wonder. He held Hobby as if he were something infinitely precious (which he was, this orga that mecha had been created to serve, priceles beyond all measure) and kept the man's mouth lightly engaged, until Hobby's breathing steadied and his heartrate settled into a more normal pace.  
  
He lay with his eyes closed, letting Joe kiss him, slow caresses that guided him to earth while Joe's perfectly full and tender lips brushed against his five-o'clock shadow. He let all his weight rest on the mecha's body, knowing that it would not discomfort Joe in the least, and when those slender arms wrapped around him he submitted gratefully to their embrace.  
  
As their bodies settled together, legs warmly entwined, he let his eyes drift closed and breathed their shared scent: hot sexual musk, threaded through with the pale ghost of artificial rose gardens. A sweet, hungry, delirious smell, while Joe's fingers stroked slowly through his hair... comforting him... reminding him that for tonight, at least, David was not forever lost, but still lived between them in the memories they shared.  
  
For the first time in fifteen days, Allen Hobby slept deeply and without dreams.  
  
His alarm woke him at 5:15 am, as it did every morning whether he was going up to the lab or not. The chime was soft but shrill, and today every muted warble pierced his forehead like a bone saw.  
  
"Off!" he snapped, rolling over to sit up -- and provoking the first wave of a sickening hangover. It almost drove him back down to the pillow again, but instead he leaned forward and buried his face in his hands, closing his eyes as he willed the savage pounding in his head to subside.  
  
The first thought that resolved itself out of the confusion was: David is gone. With it came a wave of grief and resignation, and the knowledge that yesterday he had turned his back on that dream forever. Briefly, he wondered why he was naked.  
  
Then he remembered the vodka and the whiskey (their sour aftertaste still lingered in his mouth), and something that had topped them both, hot and silken and as deep and as sweet as roses -- and realized what was missing. A glance behind him confirmed that he had been sleeping alone, and that his clothes still lay scattered on the carpet where they had been abandoned. For some reason, this only increased his sorrow.  
  
He pulled himself to his feet and drew on his bathrobe (an exercise in concentration in itself) and walked carefully to the bathroom, feeling nauseous, wincing as he turned on the light and tipped aspirin into his hand, followed by two glasses of water. Getting those down settled his stomach a little, enough at least to consider a cup of coffee. Then more cold water, splashed on his unshaven face and patted away with a towel -- the ritual of every morning since he had become a man -- but today when he faced himself in the mirror, assessing the need for a shave, something there gave him pause.  
  
Something unexpected.  
  
He stood silently, studying the reflection of his eyes and trying to understand the new thing that lay behind them: something just arrived, a wave on a dark sea, a piece of music heard once and now indelibly engraved upon him. He turned it in his mind, unable to map its precise dimensions, but did not cast it away out of hand for lack of understanding it.  
  
Allen Hobby was a man of science, but he was also a man of wonder. He had loved deeply, and been loved, but when those loves passed from his life he had gathered himself up and gone on alone, because his first purpose had always remained the quest, the vision, the work that God had placed him on this earth to do. So strong was this drive that it had taken his biological son's death, which had almost robbed him of that will to go on, and made it the inspiration for his greatest triumph.  
  
He was also a man who understood that the human heart, no matter how injured by fate, never has any shortage of dreams. Now, on the first new day after surrendering his last hope of David's recovery, he felt bruised and weary, hung over and still a little drunk, still a little lost, still burdened with a long process of grief to come -- but the great work still lay ahead of him. He still had the rest of his life to untangle the manifold mysteries that God had wrought.  
  
But this mystery lay inside his own skin. He perceived that he was changed, but when he tried to decipher what this new thing in him was, all that came to mind was a persistant image: David's beloved face, looking up at him -- looking up at Joe -- in sorrow, as they were separated for the last time. Like all his memories of David's final hours, it had only come to him through Joe's ordeal, through Joe's eyes.  
  
 _For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand._  
  
Remembering his tears of the previous night, he smiled, and thanked God for the intersection of reason and passion that leads men to acts of grace.  
  
He knew now what he had to do.  
  
The jumpsuit and shoes had been collected from in front of the couch, and in the kitchen the coffeemaker was ticking contentedly as it kept his morning libation hot. In the brief auditory space between pouring the coffee and adding milk he heard a soft, deliberate footstep from the library: Joe, discreetly announcing his location. When he'd stirred in sugar, he took the cup with him to investigate.  
  
He found Joe standing in front of the mahogany desk that dominated the room, gazing at the shelf above it, where several faces of David gazed back at him. Hobby got the impression that he had been standing there for hours, silent and immobile, staring at the photographs all through the darkness of the night -- the LX9 had superb low-light vision -- and through the coming dawn. Like his earlier intuitions about Joe, it had no solid basis in observation.  
  
Nevertheless, he felt he could predict the progressions of this particular wave, this particular music.  
  
Joe glanced at him curiously as he approached. "Good morning, Allen."  
  
"Good morning, Joe." He sipped his coffee, observing that Joe's attention had returned immediately to the largest portrait: fulfillment and loss, desire and despair. "Those are pictures of my son."  
  
Joe looked at the shelf again, then back at him, this time cocking his head in the quintessential mecha questioning gesture. Hung-over as he was, it took Hobby a second to understand why Joe was confused.  
  
"Not our David." The possessive plural came effortlessly. "Of my biological son. David was made in his likeness."  
  
Joe turned back to the photographs. "The resemblance is remarkable."  
  
"Thank you." He smiled a little, amused by the exchange.  
  
"He doesn't live with you?" Joe asked, his attention lingering on the eyes of the largest portrait:  _In memory of David_. He was making small talk, an essential skill in a companion mecha, especially one used to dealing with reticent clients.  
  
"He died six years ago."  
  
Joe looked down. There was a moment of awkward silence. Then he said, "I'm sorry," and Hobby knew that it was only a pleasantry -- Joe was not capable of caring about the boy whose death had torn Hobby's life apart.  
  
Not the way he had cared about David. Their David. And certainly not the way David had obviously cared for him. The last recorded image came to Hobby's mind again, the child mecha's look of grief as his companion was pulled so suddenly away from him, and reminded him that he was making the right decision.  
  
"Joe." When the mecha glanced up again, he looked stern and spoke firmly. "When I take you to bed with me, I expect you to stay there until I get up. Is that clear?"  
  
"I'm sorry, I didn't --" Then Joe caught the implication of what had been said. His beautiful eyes met Hobby's and dwelt there with a gaze more intent than any he was accustomed to receiving from a mecha, and when Joe spoke again his words were clearly chosen with equal care. "It won't happen again."  
  
Hobby nodded, pleased by the subtlety of his understanding. "Come with me."  
  
He led Joe back to the dining room and nodded him into a chair at the table, then set down his coffee and bent to Joe's head. The LX9 had its wait-state and cube ejection actuators positioned behind the left and right ear (respectively), where an aggressive customer wasn't likely to trigger them by accident. When he pressed the first actuator Joe automatically shifted to sit well back in the chair and locked his joints, his face going blank as his cube functions suspended. He pressed the second, and Joe's handsome face split away from the rest of his head and peeled back to reveal the grey metal substructure that lay beneath.  
  
Hobby put on his glasses, then pulled the ejected cube from its slot and tilted it to inspect the tiny markers that indicated how many of Joe's five skill ports were filled. As he had expected, Joe was topped up. He would have to scan the cube to find out which specializations were installed, but Joe obviously had two seduction chips -- one for each sexual orientation -- and one for dance proficiency, as his performances in his cell had demonstrated.  
  
He sat down across from Joe and drank his coffee, turning the cube over in his hand as he contemplated its elegant lines. He would leave the dance proficiency where it was, because it had been an integral part of David's experience of Joe. The heterosexuality chip could be removed to make way for something more suited to his needs, a secretarial skills set most likely. Joe could already drive antigravity craft... perhaps he would install a cultural appreciation chip as well. Sports, possibly? Or classical music?  
  
David was gone, and this was the first day of the rest of their lives.

 

THE END


End file.
